Westinghouse Open Box WGen5300v Portable Generator
Nov 20, 2023
2 hours in and not impressed.
So far not impressed and I can see why its only 400 bucks there abouts. . After warm up it's governor is wildly fluctuating under light load. I can visually see the governor rod moving quickly
back and forth at least once every second. However the hertz and voltage remains steady, verified with a Fluke multi meter. . The noise from the motor with the many RPM changes is annoying, its unlike any generator I ever experienced there is no nearly constant noise with only a quick difference when a quick startup/load is placed on it. in my experience when a carbureted engine is wildly changing idle speed its always been a carburation problem. I would not doubt that some likely hard to meet or maybe impossible new government emission standard is to blame for this issue.
Started up first pull and ran it on 120 with a 1000watt spot light plugged in a duplex socket for approx. 5 mins did some checks down to spark KV and burn time all seemed fine.
Then I shut it down and plugged it into the houses transfer circuit/system and switched it to 240V mode. When I went to start it choke off it would not start up, stared only with full choke. Five min run time and maybe 3 or 4 mins before next start it should have started up choke off no problem all the generators I have operated would have started choke off.
Once inside the house and on generator power some LED light bulbs were brilliantly and quickly flashing like a flash on an old film camera. So quickly the multimeter could not get a reading on high volts when they flashed.
WhenI went to check out the LED screen for hours volts and hertz it would not change to its next mode easily I had to fight it to get it to change. I had to go get a small object in this case a finish nail to be able to press the button in far enough since my finger could not press it in the hole far enough.
I'll be using it this winter as I always need to run one many times a winter and I have two backups but I think I might have to switch to my old main generator at night so the RPM changing noise won't keep me awake.